i swear we were infinite
by irmaida
Summary: Sometimes she wonders if it's really worth it. LeoCalypso, after the war with Gaea. Calypso-centric.


i swear we were infinite

\

In her thousands of years of living, she has learned three key things. One, boys lie. Two, after a fall comes a crash. And three, the Fates are cruel.

\

It begins with Odysseus. He's drowning, and she saves his life. She nurses him back to health. He is brilliant, a shining star in her usually monotonous imprisonment on the island. Clever, and charismatic, and kind. And she's lonely, so lonely. It only takes one word from him—_hello_—for her to become absolutely besotted. She falls fast and hits hard. He is so very handsome, after all—tall and well-built with broad shoulders and black curls and a twinkle in his eyes.

But she doesn't see the twinkle very often. Because he is always unhappy, always talking about going home, back to his wife and child. She tries to make him happy. She offers him immortality, life forever on her island with her. Eventually everything she does was for him—every dress she weaves, every pair of sandals she chooses to wear, every brush of her hair, trying so desperately to make him love her. She even resorts to trickery and force—hot, dark nights in her cave where she forces him to love her, nights she later is ashamed of.

She tries for seven years to get him to love her, love her the way she desperately loves him. But he never smiles. The twinkle only appears in his eyes when he talks about his home, his son, and Penelope. His wife.

And eventually, she lets him go.

\

Around a thousand years later, another man washes up on her island. His name is Francis, and he is golden—flaxen hair and shining skin and brilliant blue eyes. She tries hard not to fall in love with him, but it is inevitable. She falls fast and hits hard. He's a lot less unhappy than Odysseus was, too, smiling and friendly. He tells her he cares, he tells her that she is special, that she is wonderful and beautiful and precious, and screw whoever tells her otherwise. He is lying. When she offers him immortality and asks him to stay, he shakes his head vehemently and begins blathering about his wife and children.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. You're beautiful, and lovely, a great girl and all, but I can't stay _forever_."

The crash hurts.

\

By the time Percy Jackson comes around, she knows of the nature of her curse and tries to be as guarded as possible. It's unavoidable. She is lonely, and he is there with his sea-green eyes and messy black hair. She falls fast and hits hard, and he breaks her heart. He says that he'll do something about her curse, promises to help her, and she wants to believe him, but she thinks he is lying. After all, she learned a long time ago that boys lie. A few years later, her thoughts are confirmed.

The Fates are cruel.

\

When Leo Valdez comes, he is not like the rest. Rude. Scrawny. A stick! A _joke_. And she is tired, so very tired.

They slowly befriend each other. Befriend. And befriend _only_. He is, after all, a stick, she reminds herself. Not handsome, not golden, not beautiful, nothing.

(But he is so, so beautiful inside, she thinks. On fire.)

To remind herself that he is strictly off limits, she forces herself to think about the others, to remind herself of the pain. Once she casually mentions Odysseus in a conversation, asking Leo what happened to him, and she learns that Odysseus is still known as a hero. He came home triumphantly, was reunited with his family, lived a long happy life, had twelve children, epics written, ballads sung, fulfilling life and all that rot.

So the Fates are capable of being kind. Just not to her.

Inescapably she falls for Leo. And this time, it is crueler than before. She falls slowly, so that when the inevitable crash comes, it is unexpected and leaves her gasping and lost and alone and in the dark and wanting to die. Of course that's impossible.

She'll never have that luxury.

\

He promises to come back. But she knows boys lie.

But Leo Valdez was never like the rest, was he?

\

She sees it at dawn.

A golden boat with a dragon head, not any dragon head but _the _dragon head, the one _he_ had spoken of.

She drops her soup bowl and runs so quickly that she almost knocks over her chair. The dirt scratches her bare feet as she runs through her garden, trampling the painstakingly grown plants, because if it is him then none of it matters, and even if it is not him, nothing mattered in the first place.

She stops at the shoreline, lungs burning, heart pounding, hands trembling. The ship, battered but beautiful like he is, seems to approach in slow motion. There are people on deck, some faces vaguely familiar, but it is too far away for her to focus.

And then everything speeds up to real time, and he is there, _Leo_, and the ship stops, and he comes running off, the familiar cheeky smile on his face, and she bursts into a huge grin to match his own and runs towards him with so much momentum that when the collision finally occurs, she and Leo fall into the water, her on top of him.

She hears voices coming from the ship, including one that is vaguely and painfully familiar, but she doesn't hear them because she's too busy laughing as she holds him, trying to convince herself that he is _real_, and he holds her, telling her that yes, he is real.

\

Afterwards, when they dry off and get out of the water, Leo leads her to the boat and tries to explain.

"Things are changing, Calypso," says Leo happily. "The gods are setting you free from Ogygia."

She shakes her head. "How?"

"We defeated Gaea. The gods thought that they owed us a little something. Besides, the gods were have supposed to free you months ago, when Percy—" Leo breaks off awkwardly.

Calypso only smiles. "Percy requested it," she finishes for him. "Leo, it's okay. I forgave him a long time ago."

"I don't know if I have," Leo mutters. "You know, if that was me, I would've…"

"But then I would have never met you," says Calypso quietly.

He meets her eyes. "Me too," he says, serious for once, his eyes sincere. Then his trademark playful grin returns. "Which is good, because we still have that auto repair shop to set up, don't we?"

Calypso laughs.

\

She meets the rest of the crew on board. Jason and Piper. Frank and Hazel. Coach Hedge, satyr. Reyna, daughter of Bellona. Percy Jackson and Annabeth. _His _Annabeth.

She feels a light nudge to her side and turns to see Leo. "Go to them," he says.

She bites her lip. "Come with me."

Leo shakes his head. "Nah, I think you should do this yourself. And anyway, I need to check up on something below deck." He pushes her towards Percy and Annabeth, gives her a smile, and walks away, his hands in his pockets.

Calypso stands at loss, across the room from the couple. She sees him standing there, the same handsome face, the same black hair and sea-green eyes. Older now, but still _him_. Joking, laughing, holding the other girl's hand. Annabeth is beautiful, not exactly pretty in the way Piper is, but lovely with blonde hair and knowing gray eyes. Calypso waits for her heart to clench, for the familiar feeling of envy and anger to rush through her blood, for the longing to sting in her eyes. And then she realizes, _it's not there_. It's gone.

She smiles and walks across the room.

\

Her island dissolves a few minutes later. She watches it crumble to dust through the windows of the golden boat. The island is her home, her prison, her curse, invariably _hers_. And with her preparing to leave, with two men who have visited it once visiting a second time, it simply cannot exist. She watches it disappear, and there's a strange ache in her heart.

She feels Leo's hand in hers, and the ache disappears. He is worth it, worth it all, and will be worth it forever.

\

Except sometimes, it feels like he isn't.

She goes to New York City for the first time and is simply overwhelmed by it all. Percy had spoken a bit of the outside world, how much it had changed, but she had never imagined that it would be like _this_. Blinking lights, huge buildings, wheeled machines honking across black pavement leaving a trail of black smoke, heat and noise, and people. So many, many people.

She walks across what is called a sidewalk, eyes wide in wonder, her head trying to make sense of it all.

A huge furry brown and black animal appears out of nowhere and barks at her before a man with huge muscles and ink all over his arms pulls the snarling animal away. Calypso stares at the metal rings in his nose and ear and eyebrows and feels more shaken than she should be.

Leo's voice brings her back to reality. "You alright?"

"What was that?" she asks. "That animal?"

"A Rottweiler," Leo explains. "That's a breed of dog. You do know what dogs are, right?"

"Of course!" she replies, slightly offended. "Although I had no idea so many breeds existed. The world has… changed a lot more than I expected. That man, why did he have metal rings in his eyebrows?"

"Piercings," Leo explains.

"And the ink on his arms?"

"Permanent ink. Tattoos. It's body art."

Calypso nods and realizes the immensity of what she has to learn and hears the ringing of honking machines in her ears and wonders why she left her peaceful island. And then she remembers. And reminds herself that he is worth it.

\

He asks her to go to a movie with him. It's a romantic comedy, he explains, a _rom-com_. And then he rambles on for a while about what exactly a movie is and how it works and how it was discovered before she can say yes. Then he's quiet. He seems strangely nervous about it all, and Calypso doesn't exactly understand why because it's just a movie.

It's been exactly a week since she's been released from Ogygia. She's been given a small cabin to reside in by a centaur named Chiron, at a place she's told is called Camp Half Blood. It's full of Greek demigods—so many people. It's strange living there, knowing that she can leave any time and that there are people she can talk to outside, lots of people. But she thinks she's getting used to life, and she rather likes it, even if there are no invisible servants.

She sees Leo every day, although he seems to be strange and awkward around her. Calypso worries that maybe he doesn't want her, maybe there's someone else. But she's afraid to bring it up, has always been afraid. So many men have left her in the end…

So she's a bit nervous about the movie too. She wears a peach-colored dress, a bit shorter than usual, a pretty thing she modeled after fashions in the modern world.

"Y-you look great," Leo stammers out when he sees her.

"Thank you," she answers, smiling.

He takes her hand. They watch the movie together. She stares at the screen, entranced at the moving pictures and tries to wrap her mind around how exactly mortals do this. The storyline, she thinks, is rather silly, and there are some things she doesn't understand, but she understands a lot more than she would have a week ago. She's proud and happy.

Halfway through the movie, she feels Leo's arm around her shoulders.

_Worth it_, she thinks to herself. Always worth it. Worth it every day, every moment she's with him.

\

They walk home because Leo miscalculated the amount of money they would need for a taxi home. She brushes off his apologies and holds his hand, entwined as they walk together.

And then it begins to rain.

They run as she tries to shield herself with her hands. But it's unavoidable. Eventually she just stops, panting, and feels the rain on her skin, fresh and wet, the same rain she felt on Ogygia. Although she'd never gotten caught in such a storm. She smiles.

Leo stops next to her, looking rather dejected and avoiding her eyes. "Gods, I'm so sorry. First we—well, _I_—don't have money for a taxi, and then we get caught in the rain. The rain! I swear, this wasn't on purpose. How was I supposed to expect a random shower in the middle of the summer? Just my luck, although, I'm a horrible date."

"Date?" she asks, eyes widening. She'd heard that word, in the movie. It had been one of the terms she hadn't understood. "What exactly…?"

Leo reddens. "It's um, when two people like each other, it's um, stuff like this, uh, yeah. Like, um, romantically."

"You like me romantically?" she asks, surprised and delighted.

"You don't?"

"No! I do, I do," she says, laughing again, and she feels warm and fuzzy despite the cold of the rain. "I thought—" She breaks off and feels shy and young, despite being thousands of years old. She always feels like this around him, and that's good, _so _good. She suddenly remembers a scene from the rom-com they watched today, one that she'd thought to be rather silly, but she doesn't care.

She wraps his arms around his neck and kisses him. His arms wrap around her waist. She tastes water and mint and salt.

He pulls away. "You're crying."

She nods. "It's just… so wonderful."

Leo looks at her, and this time it's he that leans in and kisses her.

\

Summer ends. When Percy and Annabeth and Piper and many of the other campers go off to their homes, she and Leo wave goodbye.

"I don't have a home like that," Leo says wistfully.

"Neither do I," she says, leaning into him and remembering Ogygia.

"But then again," says Leo, looking around at the other campers that are still at Camp Half Blood, like Frank and Hazel, "this is home. A good one, too. At least there's no school. And everyone loves a lava climbing wall. And I have you." He says the last words very quickly and then looks down awkwardly. He does that a lot, she's noticed.

"You do," she says. And he looks up. She smiles widely. "And I have you too."

_Worth_ _it_. Worth it all. Always worth it.

\

A month after the golden ship arrived on her shore, the monsters come.

A rogue pit scorpion attack, Percy later explains it. Harmless for the most part, nothing to do with a prophecy or, gods forbid, a third near-apocalypse, but you can't expect too much peace in the life of a demigod.

They can't get into Camp Half Blood, but they're terrorizing the rest of Long Island. And of course, Leo, like the noble idiot he is, _has _to get involved. He tells her to stay behind while he goes off gallivanting with no weapon other than his tool belt and Percy.

She's stuck in her cabin, pacing, when she hears a knock at the door. She opens it up. It's Annabeth.

"Let's go help them," Annabeth says with a mischievous smile, handing her a shield and a small knife.

\

They try to look as casual as possible while following the boys. "We can't let them see us, because they'll just send us back," Annabeth whispers. "Percy's really a narrow-minded seaweed brain sometimes. Thinks that because I hurt my ankle ten days ago I should still be in bed. I really hate him sometimes."

She quietly giggles. "I hate Leo sometimes too."

Annabeth smiles, and Calypso wonders when exactly the blonde girl became one of her best friends.

\

Calypso has never been a warrior, but when she sees the scorpion's stinger heading for Leo, she acts on impulse. Hiding forgotten and her dagger in hand, she rushes forward and pushes Leo out of the way.

"Calypso!" Leo screams as the scorpion whips its tail around and smacks her across the arm as she slashes blindly with her knife. Luck seems to be on her side because the scorpion disintegrates.

Immediately Leo is at her side, and angry. "What are you doing here? You could have died!"

Before Calypso can say something along the lines of _so could've you_, she notices three more scorpions sneaking up behind them and sees Percy and Annabeth somewhere across the street, occupied by their own monsters, and is about to shriek when a fleet of arrows come out of nowhere, and all three scorpions disintegrate.

A pack of girls comes running down the street, armed with bows and arrows, and lead by a girl with striking blue eyes and black hair.

"I'm Thalia," she says, "and we're the Hunters of Artemis."

\

With the Hunters of Artemis arrived on the scene, what remains of the scorpions gets cleaned up rather quickly. The Hunters lead them to a nearby location, where it's much less busy and there are less mortals around, where a small medical tent is set up, while Percy and Annabeth speak to Thalia. They seem to know each other rather well. Leo tries to explain to her the story—Thalia used to be Annabeth's good friend, and then she was a tree, and then she wasn't, and she became a Hunter to escape the prophecy. Something like that, anyway, according to Leo.

She watches him talk, and that's when she notices a gash in his right arm. "What's that?" she says, pointing.

"It's nothing," says Leo, pulling down his sleeve and trying to cover up the bruises. "Nothing fatal like a scorpion sting, anyway. I rammed into fruit stand while I was trying to escape those things. I'm more worried about _you_." He eyes the dark purple marks on her arm. "Scorpion stings are supposed to be fatal. Kill you after sixty seconds, unless you get medical assistance."

"You forget, Leo, I'm the daughter of a Titan. I don't die. It'll only hurt for a few days," she explains. "But you… I'm taking you to the med tent. I'll heal you. That's what I do."

Leo rolls his eyes. "I'll be fine, I swear."

"No, I think you should," says a voice behind them. Leo and Calypso turn around to see a young woman in a plain white dress the shade of the moon, her hair in a braid, holding a golden bow and a glowing sheath of arrows.

"Lady Artemis," Calypso says, bowing deeply.

"Get up, child," Artemis says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Leo Valdez. You should be in the med tent."

Calypso nods. "Come on, I'll take care of that—"

"No," says the goddess, giving Calypso a look that makes her rather uncomfortable. "I would like to speak to you."

She and Leo exchange glances. He nods. She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before rushing after Artemis.

\

She follows Artemis to a grassy area away from the tents, where Artemis sits down on a rock and begins to sharpen her arrows. She gestures for Calypso to sit down as well.

"What is this about?" Calypso asks. She wonders if the gods have something more planned for her fate, if her release from Ogygia was just some sort of dream that now must end. She hopes not. She loves it here, free, with Leo.

"Leo Valdez will die," she says simply.

Calypso jerks back as if something has burned her. "That arm wound was hardly anything, of course not!" Then she looks down, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I forgot my manners."

Artemis brushes the apology away and continues, "I do not mean he will die today. But he will last what, another century? Maximum. Human lives go by so quickly, a mere blink of the eye. Demigod lives, even shorter. You know this, Calypso, you have lived for thousands of years on that island."

She swallows. She thinks she knows what Artemis is going to say, she's going to send her back to Ogygia, banish her back to some place where life is dull and meaningless. "But life in Ogygia wasn't really a life—it was a dream, day after day the same, nothing to do and no way to escape, punctuated by the Games of the fates. This, life with him, it's a real life, it's _worth _it."

"I'm not asking you to go back to Ogygia," Artemis interrupts, as if having read her mind. "I'm asking you to join the Hunt."

She's stunned. "No!" she exclaims, so vehemently that it even startles her. "I mean, I'm no warrior." She laughs nervously.

Artemis barely blinks. "I saw you today, killing that scorpion. With some work you could be a good warrior. And you would be surrounded by those who are the same, all of us who never die, a real family, instead of watching those you love wither away."

"Please stop saying that."

"It's the truth," Artemis says. "It looks beautiful now, young love, but I know how boys are, how life is. And think, when Leo Valdez is ninety years ago, you will still look sixteen."

"I won't!" she interrupts. "My appearance is just that, my appearance. This may be my real, natural appearance, but I can change it if I want, like you can too. I can make myself look like I'm aging physically, I'm the daughter of a Titan…"

"When Leo Valdez is in his grave, you will still look sixteen," Artemis continues.

"Stop it!" she shrieks, her face pale, her fingers shaking.

"It's the truth," she repeats. "Come with me, child. You will become a Hunter, have a family. Leave Leo Valdez now before he withers away and breaks your heart."

She shakes her head. "_No_."

Artemis stands up. "I will not force you. But if you ever change your mind, the Hunters will always happily take you." She looks at Calypso one last time, and the look in goddess's eyes—as if she's just signed her death warrant—makes her shiver.

Calypso shakes her head. "No, I won't, I won't."

(She's still shaking her head and repeating it to herself, like a mad mantra, when Artemis disappears.)

\

She tries to forget Artemis's words. She sweeps it off to the dark corners of her mind and resolves to never, ever think about it. Because it's worth it. Always worth it.

\

Leo turns sixteen. They hold a party at the amusement park with Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Frank, Hazel, a satyr named Grover, and a tree nymph named Juniper. It's one of the best days of her life.

She rides a roller coaster for the first time. At first it's terrifying, and as the little cart descends, she screams for her life, certain that they are all going to die. And then they don't die, and she laughs and decides that she wants to ride it again. They end up riding the roller coaster—it's called _Zeus' Thunderbolt_, which they have a good laugh over—four times. And then Grover declares that he's getting sick so they ride the carousel instead. They have cheap hot dogs and caramel corn for lunch, and she declares that there is no place on this planet better than an amusement park.

Percy laughs. "That's what you think, Calypso, but you haven't been to a water park yet."

Leo bobs his head excitedly. "It's like an amusement park, but with water! You have to go there one day, maybe we could go for _your _birthday."

When she tells Leo that she doesn't know her birthday, having been born thousands of years ago, he hardly bats an eye. Instead he laughs and tells her that they'll just make a birthday for her. They set a random date of July 17 and decide that they'll all go to the water park on that day.

(She's shaken, though. Because she's suddenly reminded how… _immortal_ she is.)

At the end of the day, Calypso surprises Leo with a chocolate cake that she'd baked herself earlier in the week. Leo gives her a kiss on the cheek and eats two slices of the cake.

"This is amazing," he says, his voice slightly muffled. "_You're _amazing."

Afterwards, they walk together back to Camp Half Blood. He gives her a proper kiss on the lips and thanks her for a fantastic birthday.

\

On April 17, it rains, so she and Leo go to the cinema instead, just the two of them, a small celebration. It's been over nine months since he saved her. She lifts up the arm rest and cuddles into him, while he wraps his arm around her.

"This is like our first date," he comments after the movie when they're walking home, smiling. "You know, the one I thoroughly messed up on."

She takes his hand. "Yes. But this time I brought an umbrella." She gestures at the yellow rain shield around them. Nice and dry and warm, especially with him. "And that wasn't that bad of a date."

He wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her, and she revels in how frequent it is now, kissing. And yet she's still not quite used to it. She hopes she won't ever get used to it, kissing him. She pulls away when she feels raindrops on her skin and realizes that she's forgotten about the umbrella. She readjusts it. Leo's arms remain around her waist, and he looks at her adoringly.

"Calypso…" he breathes out. "I love you."

She inhales sharply. Leo's eyes widen as if he's realized what he says and he pulls away, taking his arms off her waist.

"Sorry," he mumbles, looking down. "Sometimes I say things, actually a lot of times, and—"

She shuts him up effectively with another kiss. And rain be damned, she drops her umbrella to wrap her arms around him and thread her fingers into his hair and when she pulls away, they're both soaking wet. She catches her breath and says, "Me too, Leo. I love you."

His grin lights up the entire street. She grins back and crouches down to pick up the umbrella.

"We should stop doing this, though," she says, one hand on the umbrella and the other wringing out her wet brown hair.

"Yeah," he says. "We should."

She gives up on trying to dry out her hair and takes his hand instead. And despite the rainstorm, she stands safe because of the shelter of the yellow umbrella and warm because of him.

\

Years pass. They spend it, together.

\

They get married on a beautiful summer day. It begins raining halfway through the minister's speech. Leo mutters something like, "Just my luck" and shakes his fist at Zeus. The thunder rumbles as if the god is laughing at him.

Luckily, Percy and Jason are on hand as groomsmen and say that they're pretty sure they can keep everyone dry. And their guests are pretty sympathetic, being demigods and knowing that things in the life of a demigod simply go wrong sometimes. Despite getting her silk bridesmaid dress wet, Annabeth only laughs and says that it could have been a lot worse. After all, she and Percy, who got married two years ago, had a rogue manticore attack their wedding.

"I _told _Seaweed Brain that we should've held it at Camp Half Blood or somewhere safe or something. But _no_, he had to insist upon a beach wedding," Annabeth recalls, laughing, as she pokes Percy.

Percy groans and threatens to make it rain on her.

Percy and Jason take care of the rain, but just in case, and for memory's sake, Calypso makes Leo hold up a yellow umbrella. She adjusts her lace veil and white dress, a short, simple thing in Greek style. The minister, a mortal and a friend of Paul Blofis, looks a bit perturbed, and Calypso wonders what he's seeing. However, he agrees to finish up the ceremony, and the rest of the wedding goes off without a hitch.

It's perfect. So perfect that she cries. Absolutely perfect as Leo lifts her veil and kisses her at the altar.

So the Fates are capable of being kind. Even to her.

\

They move to California, where they find a nice flat at Camp Jupiter and settle down, with Percy and Annabeth as their neighbors.

On their one-year wedding anniversary, Leo takes her to a fancy restaurant with a French name. Leo, being dyslexic and very American, can't even pronounce it.

"But the food is fantastic, so I hear," Leo says as they take their seats. "And that's a lot more important than the name. Plus, I think these seats are velvet. Very sophisticated."

Calypso laughs and points up at the ceiling. "And that's a real chandelier."

Leo points at the wine display. "And look at that wine. You know this restaurant is serious."

"And these plates," she says, playing along. "They're so white."

"Wow. That's when you know that a restaurant is going to be good. The epitome of sophistication."

They're close to bursting out into giggles like immature children when their blonde waitress comes around. Her name tag reads _Suzie_. "Hello, what can I get you?" But she's only looking at Leo. The waitress leans in closer than usual as Leo orders, completely oblivious, and Calypso's torn between amusement and jealousy. But jealousy's unnecessary, she reminds herself. She knows that Leo's hers.

"That woman was flirting with you," she says when she thinks the waitress is out of earshot.

Leo looks shocked. "What? Really?"

Calypso rolls her eyes. "I know, I'm surprised too. After all, you're a stick!" She smiles so that he knows that she's only teasing. He's not really a stick, not anymore; he's twenty-five years old now, grown up. Taller, with lean muscles, and handsome in an impish sort of way. And still beautiful inside. On fire.

The waitress comes back with their drinks surprisingly fast. She's still only looking at Leo. "Do you not want anything else?" the woman asks, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Leo shifts uncomfortably and looks at Calypso, screaming _help _with his eyes.

She decides to put him out of his misery and says, "Excuse me, I asked for pink lemonade, not water."

The waitress whirls around and, to her surprise, sneers. "Oh, the child speaks."

"Excuse me?" Calypso asks.

"What are you, his sister? Stepsister, maybe, considering the age gap."

"She's my wife," says Leo harshly.

"Your wife?" the waitress shrieks. "Are you serious? She looks like she's still in high school!"

(_When Leo Valdez is ninety years old, you will still look sixteen_.)

"She's older than she looks. And we're leaving," Leo snaps, standing up and grabbing Calypso rather forcefully. The chairs screech across the ground. The waitress watches them in shock as Leo storms away, Calypso in tow.

"You didn't actually take her seriously, did you?" Leo asks her when they're out of the restaurant. "You look a bit shaken."

Calypso shakes her head. "No, no, I'm fine."

(_When Leo Valdez is in his grave, you will still look sixteen_.)

Leo's grip on her arm doesn't loosen. "I'm _fine_," she insists, trying to will herself to believe it.

\

(After that there are the articles and faces she studies, pictures of the natural aging process and what it looks like, crammed in her closet where hopefully no one will find them. Leo catches her just once and asks what it's about; she shrugs and looks away, and he doesn't ask again. And as the years pass, she gets used to manipulating her appearance; it becomes as normal as blinking or breathing. But there are moments when she's alone and she lets the façade fall, and her sixteen-year-old face gazes back at her, forever young and fresh while everything around her begins to wither away.)

\

Years pass. And it's wonderful, and _worth _it, and happy and perfect and more than she could have ever wanted, most of the time. She savors every moment, every second, saving it into her memory forever. She takes too many pictures, and he makes her laugh so much that she even gets real wrinkles, laugh lines. She's happy.

She gives birth to a child that they name Karen, the daughter of a demigod and a minor goddess.

"She's going to attract trouble like poop attracts flies," Leo jokes.

"That's an _awful _analogy," Calypso scolds, stroking her daughter's face. She's three months old now, and so beautiful, with tufts of dark hair beginning to grow, wide brown eyes full of life, and a playful smile.

"She has your eyes," Leo comments later, holding the baby.

"And your smile," Calypso replies.

(Thalia visits to give them her congratulations. And she, forever fifteen, looks at their aged faces with horror. It's carefully masked, but Calypso notices it, because she feels it too.)

\

Karen _does_ "attract trouble like poop attracts flies." She has the New New Great Prophecy center around her and almost dies more times than Calypso would feel good about.

But Karen's a survivor, and she makes it to her seventeenth birthday relatively unscathed. She celebrates by going to the water park with her friends, Sheila Sally Jackson and Jenna Zhang and Thomas Stoll.

"Remember when that was us?" Leo asks wistfully as he sit on the sofa, tinkering with some scraps of metal. Calypso gazes out the window of their flat and watches their daughter and her friends walk away, laughing and teasing each other. Thomas and Karen are holding hands, she notes, as are Sheila and Jenna.

"That could still be us," Calypso says, replying what Leo has said. "We could follow them."

Leo shakes his head. "Nah. Karen probably doesn't want her parents to crash her birthday party. Besides, we're past that time now."

She bites her lip and keeps her eyes directed towards the window, away from him. "You mean we're old." She tries to keep her tone light, but tears spring into her eyes.

"Yeah," Leo says, laughing. "Look, I've got arthritis in my fingers and everything. Could do without that." Calypso turns around, trying to ignore how much he's aged, and Leo looks up from his tinkering to see her tears. "What's wrong?"

She turns away again. "Nothing."

Leo stands up and walks over, and she feels his arms wrap around her waist from behind. He's so close that she can feel his breath by her ear as he asks her again, "What's wrong?"

She says nothing, sniffling softly and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I'm never going to leave you, you know," he says. "If you're worried about that. I'm going to be with you. Forever." He grabs her hand before she can bring it back to her eyes and wraps his fingers around hers. "I love you, you know that?"

She nods and tries to smile, but all she can think about are all the wrinkles on that hand that weren't there before.

\

She bounces her grandchildren on her knee—twins named Jared and Jacob. Thomas and Karen went shopping for baby clothes, leaving her and Leo to babysit. Leo's currently in the kitchen, cooking up something for lunch. He's never been a good cook, but after over half a century of living, he's learned a few recipes.

Calypso's alone with the babies, staring at their young, fresh faces, and for a moment, she lets her façade fall and assumes her natural appearance of a young sixteen-year-old. The babies look surprised for a moment, but she quickly soothes them, singing until they coo.

They are her _grandchildren_.

She hears a clattering from the kitchen and quickly alters her appearance before Leo can come out.

"I made sandwiches," Leo sing-songs, poking his head out of the doorway. His hair is more white than black, and his face is marked with wrinkles, but he still has the same smile, the same eyes. "And I ground up some fruit. Are the babies at the age where they can eat that?"

\

Sixty years. She gets to spend sixty years of her life with him. They go by too quickly.

\

He died at seventy-six, a good long life for a human, an especially good long life for a demigod. An excellent life, fulfilling and wonderful, everyone says at the funeral.

But after everyone else has left, she stands in front of his casket, lungs burning, heart pounding, hands trembling.

She thinks of a day, decades ago, when a goddess offered her a family and told her that Leo Valdez was going to die, a day when she swore he would be worth it, and wonders if she's wrong.

Sixty years. A blink of an eye. Gone too soon.

She weeps. He's gone. He's really, really gone. They all are. Out of all their old friends, Percy and Annabeth lasted the longest, but Percy died three years ago. Annabeth was heartbroken, but she was gone by the next month, and they were reunited in death.

She'll never have that luxury.

\

She visits his grave every week without fail, in her natural form, with her sixteen-year-old face and body. While she's at the graveyard, she'll visit the other ones too. She brings all sorts of flowers and cries and cries. Many times she holds out her hand, expecting for him to grab it and appear and tell her that this was all some big prank, before she catches herself and remembers. Or she'll catch herself talking and realize that he's not there to listen anymore.

Everyone else is gone. Of course there's Karen, but her daughter has her own life. Anyway, it's better that way. Maybe, if Calypso slowly detaches herself, it won't hurt so much when Karen is gone, as everyone eventually will be. In Calypso's natural form, her daughter looks over three times her age anyway.

Sixty years. Not long enough. He'd promised forever. He loved her, and she loved him, and she thought that would be enough to ensure her happiness forever. But she forgot three key things. One, boys lie. Two, after a fall comes a crash. And three, the Fates are cruel. Especially to her.

_Was it worth it?_

\

It's raining one day, after three weeks without him, when she's at Leo's grave. She stands safe because of the shelter of the yellow umbrella and cold without him. She can't bear to stare at the name, written in stone, no substitute for who he was in real life, so she walks away. That's when she sees her.

Thalia Grace, her face forever fifteen. Dressed in black with her bow and arrow strapped to her side, holding a black umbrella and a bouquet of purple flowers. Wordlessly, she approaches the other girl and stands by her side. The headstone they are in front of is labeled _Jason Grace_.

"He used to be younger than me," Thalia says, breaking the silence. Thalia laughs bitterly, her eyes full of unshed tears. "My baby brother."

Calypso says nothing. They stand in silence for a while, before Calypso asks timidly, "Does it get easier?"

Thalia shrugs. "I—I don't know. The other Hunters—the older ones—say yes. Time heals all wounds." The other girl hesitates. Then she adds, "We're—we're still open, you know. Accepting, if you ever want to join the Hunt."

Calypso looks at the headstone. "I'll think about it."

Thalia nods. "Send me an Iris Message when you have your answer, okay?" She crouches down and leaves the flowers. "Anyway, I should go. The Hunters are waiting for me. Are you sure you don't want to come?"

She shakes her head, although honestly, she's not sure what's holding her back, what she really wants. "I'll Iris Message you, I promise. But I—I want to stay a little longer."

\

(She ends up standing there, under the yellow umbrella, dry but cold, and alone, for a long, long time, trying to tell herself that it'll all be okay.

After all, time heals all wounds, and she only has forever.)

* * *

Sorry if this is OOC or has canon discrepancies or grammar mistakes. I wrote it in a bit of a rush! This'll probably be canonballed by the time BoO comes out anyway. Oh, and remember, I don't own PJO/HoO, and the cover image isn't mine either.


End file.
